July 18, 2005 – When I watched my very first race, the 1983 Tour de France, there was one American riding, and not the one you’re all expecting: LeMond only hit the Tour a year later. Jonathan Boyer was to Greg LeMond what John the Baptist was to Jesus: a pioneer who paved the way for the pioneer that everyone remembers, subsisting on locusts and struggling in the wilderness to preach a message that would be picked up, to greater effect, by those who followed. In 1983, Boyer was completing his third Tour, and was in his 7th season as a pro. He would finish 12th, and be profiled on ABC sports — certainly the first time I remember seeing cycling on TV outside of Olympic coverage.

Boyer rode essentially alone as an American for his entire career — so alone that, when he rode the 1981 Tour, the organizers set aside Tour rules and begged him to wear the stars-and-stripes jersey so that images of the race might get broadcast back home. When LeMond arrived and Boyer passed the torch, US riders were still a complete oddity. At the 1984 Tour, there probably weren’t enough riders from outside the traditional powerhouse countries (Belgium, France, Spain and Italy) to form a complete team. A few years later, the arrivals of Andy Hampsten, Steve Bauer and the 7-Eleven team began to broaden the field, and American cycling was out of the wilderness, but a long wilderness it had been.

I look at the results thus far in the Tour, and I’m amazed at how things have changed. Not only are US riders at the Tour, but they’re riding well. Forget Armstrong: only one country (Spain) has more riders in the top 40. Three teams are led by American riders, and two other teams are seeing their second-best GC placings go to US riders. There are three US riders in the top 15, and would be four if George Hincapie weren’t confined to doing his job. Make no mistake, the rise of American cycling is the greatest single story in the sport over the past five years, more important — with all due respect — than the revolution in Australian cycling because it is more well-rounded, more focused on the very top echelon of the sport (as opposed to sprint wins and the track), and wasn’t achieved by a massive burst of government funding.

Then how was it achieved? Well, quite simply, it was achieved by focusing on the things that the United States does best: opportunity, and competition. The signings of Mike Neel and especially Boyer showed that an American could be a solid pro, and gave an opportunity to Greg LeMond. LeMond showed than an American could be a top performer, and paved the way for Hampsten and Bauer. Hampsten, Bauer and the 7-Eleven boys, followed by Subaru and U.S. Postal, provided the most important element of all: the unmistakable message to every rider in America that European success wasn’t limited to phenomena like LeMond, Bauer and Hampsten, and that it was perfectly feasible for them to get to Europe too.

Then competition sets in. Competition for those spots, for those dollars. More riders deciding to pursue their cycling a few years rather than drop the sport and become investment bankers, coaches or sportswear reps. More races, fuelled by the Armstrong phenomenon. Finally, most importantly, tougher, more aggressive racing on the US scene, as riders compete for the domestic success that they now know can — will! — translate into recognition and opportunity overseas.

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Many people focus on Armstrong, and use him as an example of what American racing can achieve, but that focus is wrong: he’s been a European racer for 12 years now, and his success says much about one athlete but nothing about the racing in the country he’s from. He is not the harbinger of a new era in American cycling, just the latest exception.

For a better gauge of where American cycling is, look to Chris Horner, who built his career in the US and recovered from injury this year to squeeze onto the Tour squad (with a convincing stage win in the Tour of Switzerland). When he broke his leg, he left to recover, spending weeks away from his team. Twenty years ago, his French team would have thought the American was weak, was taking an extended vacation. How times have changed: when he rejoined his team he was stronger than ever. Last week he was just eked out of a stage win. He is currently second-highest on GC for the Saunier Duval team.

If LeMond and Armstrong are examples of what great athletes America can produce, Chris Horner is something even more important: an example of the kind of riders that American racing can produce. And at USPRO in Philadelphia, he was outraced by Chris Wherry of Health Net-Maxxis because he was spending too much time watching Jelly Belly’s Danny Pate: in other words, there are other Chris Horners out there. Armstrong may have won six Tours, and be poised to win a seventh, but it’s the Chris Horners who are turning American racing into a force.

July 11, 2005 – “The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities” -Sophocles

Rest day at the Tour, and much to think about as we look back over the first week. One of the more interesting little battles has been the T-Mobile team. I don’t mean T-Mobile versus Discovery, or CSC, or any of the other teams. I mean the battle within T-Mobile, as Alex Vinokourov tries to show his strength over Jan Ullrich before the real racing starts.

His big effort in the long prologue. His repeated attacks, including his slicing attack and near-stage win in Nancy, four days ago. His relentless work to break open the finale of the eighth stage, where his ccelerations launched his teammate Kloden while Ullrich rode tempo and Discovery did their best to try and display a kind of “active passivity”, straddling that fine line that yellow jersey teams do early on when they avoid insulting the race by doing absolutely nothing but at the same time don’t do very much.

Some of you may have though Vino was testing Discovery, helping T-Mobile, playing the selfless team role of, for lack of a better term, “shit disturber” – or “joker” as they say in France (or should I say “Jokaiiire”: the French are brilliant for shamelessly stealing English words and doing nothing more than butchering the pronunciation to lay their claim on them. Try “shoooing gomme” for chewing gum next time you’re in Paris, and the natives will immediately grasp you). In fact, that may indeed be the case, and perhaps I’m misinterpreting the entire situation.

That being said, I was seized by the most tremendous feeling of déja-vu as I watched the Vino/Ullrich action of the first week, Vino taking every opportunity to attack and Ullrich taking advantage of the TTT to get to the front of the T-Mobile train and show his stuff. I’m reminded of the ’86 Tour with LeMond and Hinault, the ’91 Tour with, lemme see, a young unproven Indurain, a former Tour winner in Pedro Delgado, and a perennial former-future-hope of French cycling, Jean-Francois Bernard, all within a handful of seconds of each other after the time trial and each with something to prove. I’m even more acutely reminded of the 1987 Tour of Italy, when Roberto Visentini and Stephen Roche fought to establish their dominance so they could curry favor with their Carrera teammates who, if memory serves, were a veritable who’s who of super-domestiques (Bontempi, Ghirotto, Cassani, Chiapucci among others, in a race where team support is crucial – more so than the Tour, I’d argue).

Because Vinokourov, despite the crazy-tactics of the last few stages, is far from crazy. He knows that no one on T-Mobile is willing to unconditionally back the Ullrich bet after so many years of frustration. He knows that Ullrich’s flameout in the Tour of Switzerland a few weeks ago, where he seemed in control before blowing apart, didn’t leave the impression of a rider coming into his form. He also knows that despite the argument of Ullrich’s German appeal to a German sponsor, T-Mobile is a global brand more interested in results than nationality. Finally, he understands that his teammates, who’ve split second-place prize money five times over the past seven years, would desperately like to see the big payoff. Vino’s agressive work to spring Kloden to a near-win in yesterday’s stage might be a harbinger of things to come, of favours to be returned. He knows that the support group, possibly led by Kloden, will play a large role in determining whose attacks are used as bluffs and whose attacks receive unconditional team support.

So, in the absence of anything to report from Discovery given their all-for-one approach, and with a CSC team more aligned towards the hopes of Ivan Basso than Bobby Julich, my eyes have been on the T-Mobile team. Ullrich as usual is talking a solid game, but his talk has been cheap an even half-dozen times now, and it is clear as a bell that he will join Pedro Delgado, Bjarne Riis, Joop Zoetemelk and, going way back, “Crazy Horse” Ferdi Kubler and “Leatherhead” Jean Robic in the category of riders who have a Tour win to their credit, and fans can still scarcely believe it ever really happened.

Or perhaps a curious mix of that and of Raymond Poulidor, another rider known more for losing Tours than winning them. Except Poulidor remained tragic, while Ullrich’s single Tour win makes the rest of his failures seem more idiotic than tragic, more Stooges than Sophocles. “Grief teaches the steadiest mind to waver,” wrote Sophocles, 2,500 years ago, and Vinokourov is hoping six years of grief might cause some T-Mobile boys to waver his way.